American Uprising

By: Daniel Rasmussen

In January of 1811, 500 slaves, dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives and axes, marched on the city of New Orleans. Highly organized, ethnically diverse and politically astute, this self-made army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also the policy of American expansionism. This event marked the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in the history of the United States.

In the groundbreaking American Uprising, Daniel Rasmussen explores the 1811 rebellion and its effect on the young nation. Although contemporary writers tried to erase this event from history, the slave revolutionaries who fought and died for justice and the hope of freedom in 1811 have not been forgotten; instead, the rebellion had a significant impact on the conflicts that would ultimately lead to the Civil War.

Daniel Rasmussen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 2009, where he won the Kathryn Ann Huggins Prize, the Perry Miller Prize, and the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize.

This book would be a major accomplishment for any historian; for an historian at such an early stage in his career, it is breathtaking. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Breathtaking. [Rasmussens] scholarly detective work reveals a fascinating narrative of slavery and resistance, but it also tells us something about history itselfabout how fiction can become fact, and how history is sometimes nothing more than erasure. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Deeply researched, vividly written, and highly original. Eric Foner

Historian Daniel Rasmussen reveals the long-forgotten history of Americas largest slave uprising, the New Orleans slave revolt of 1811. In an epic, illuminating narrative, Rasmussen offers new insight into American expansionism, the path to Civil War, and the earliest grassroots push to overcome slavery.